Observables #12

on internal frazzle, buying a Bambi shirt and soooo many encounters

I’m going to order this shirt from Bolivian artist Alejandra Dorado—the one with Bambi on it. Everything about this ensemble (and picture) reflects my current state: one part melancholy, two parts distraction, another part internal frazzle. Does that make the right amount of parts? Also, I dreamed about exposed brick walls last night. They weren’t mine.

I also like this from Farm Rio.

Although Elsie tells me I should be shopping here instead.

Mare of Easttown really moved me with Kate Winslet as a flawed middle aged mother who is grappling with her son’s suicide while working an intense case as a detective. I rarely watch a show the way I might savagely read a book - like needing to get through it. (I’m reading Jordan Tannahill’s book The Listeners like that right now.) I had to hide away in various parts of the house to finish it. “Where’s Mommy?” I heard several times while I was hunkering down, but pretended not to hear.

Also watching this 150 hour cake video. And the 72 hour Beef Wellington. Both are pretty mesmerizing.

The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls — something I should have read a long time ago.

I wrote my own story yesterday just by going slow. There is no climax.

The woman at the underwear shop tells me that her doctor upped her cholesterol medication from ten milligrams to twenty milligrams. One morning she woke up and was paralyzed. She’s slowly recovering but now has chronic muscle pain in her arms. She traces her arms to show me where. Before she said she was so strong. Now she can’t use a stapler. Thanks for listening, she calls out as I inch toward the door. I’m sorry for your suffering, I call back, which through my mask probably sounds like, Aaheeuuuooofffeing.

The guy in the video game shop shows me two options for AirPod cases—Mario or Zelda. Which game is more feminist? I ask, since it’s a purchase for my sister. Definitely Zelda, he says. By the way, these are both classic games. Oh, I say. I’ve never heard of Zelda. He’s happy to give me a history lesson. Zelda was released a few months after Mario, approximately thirty years ago. But Zelda is more feminist? I interrupt. Oh yeah, she does ‘way more helping than Princess Peach in Mario and she gets saved more. I nod along, confused at this definition of feminist, but we’re down a track now. And I need an AirPod case. But there’s also this wallet, he says, with a little pouch on the outside for earphones. He pulls it off the shelf and caresses the pocket. Who knew we would need a wallet like this now, he says. I try to show some appreciation to the god awful wallet, for the sake of this guy who says I can come back any time to talk to geeks. But then I direct our attention back to the Zelda case. The feminist one. To see if I can get to the bottom of this.

I bump into Blair, the old crossing guard, in the parking lot of No Frills. Hi Blair! Rebecca! he calls out. I miss you, I say. The new one—I don’t know if she’s going to make it, he says. She doesn’t step out with confidence, does she? No, I don’t think so. But I couldn’t do it no more. Coming three times a day. It was the last shift that was killing him. Getting on my bike in the rain. I’m too old, Rebecca. I know, Blair. But we still miss you.

Violet’s bus driver Hermes and I have to discuss the weather. That part of my day is not done yet. Every day. Is it cold or is it hot out? We can’t decide. Bye Hermes.

It takes me so long time to get home.

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Episode 7 of Sister On! comes out tomorrow which we are calling “Shit Moms,” inspired by this.